A bit more JLElite: Naif vs. Wonder Woman, Vera vs. Major Disaster's Bum, and Ollie Sulks

[espanolbot]

Okay, the context for this is that after the team's first official mission the team has hit a speedbump that has thrown the entire operation out of whack for the rest of the series. Their task was to go into an expy of Burma/Myanmar and both stop some superhuman mercenaries from overthrowing the government while at the same time arresting the genocidal nutcase that runs the place.

Although they successfully infiltrate the country under the guise of mercenaries, and prevent any civilian casualities through Wally West moving people out of the way at the last second and replacing them with temporary magical duplicates to make it appear that the genuine supervillains were actually killing people, the mission is a disaster on two fronts.

One: one of the assassins, a werewolf by the name of Wolfwood, sees through Vera's Deathstroke disguise through his sense of smell, and after having a good go at attempting to murder her, runs off and escapes their custody. The Second and more major problem is that after they arrested the dictator, someone fried him and his aides as the JLElite awaited transportation to get him to the Hague or whereever.

Evidence suggests that someone on the team was the assassin, and considering the team is made up almost primarily out of reformed supervillains, naturally both the JLA and the governments of the world are concerned, as the only reason they allowed the JLElite to be set up was on the basis that they don't kill people. The problem is that even the team don't know who the murderer is.

Here the JLA step into try and find out what's up.




Ollie storms off, knowing that somehow Vera managed to lie whilst wrapped in Diana's lasso, but not knowing how. He bumps into Dawn, wife of Manitou Raven, and after yelling incoherently about fascists for a while, Dawn kisses him, starting their affair.

Later, Vera is looking up Wolfwood's file, and both her friend with Naif and... a problem she has when stressed rear their heads.


Next issue, and the team are not going undercover investigating an innercity gang run by Coldcast's brother that is dealing an alien-made form of heroin. Naif explains what the drug is, and what the plan is going to be.



Ollie corners Vera, and tries to get her to say how she managed to fool Diana's lasso of truth.

Comments

[q99]

It's interesting that even though she can do holograms with a psi-element (so she even smells right), Vera still uses physical costumes.

[icon_uk]

Perhaps wearing clothes is an assertion of her humanity, a confidence thing.

Plus, you never know when your power might be damped by someone else.

[q99]

Belt-and-suspenders type, she is :)

[biod]

Kind of weird the JL didn't stop to think if the Lasso would work on a robot arm.

[mrstatham]

Even weirder that Wonder Woman wouldn't notice that, somehow.

[thosefew]

Especially when you notice how wrapped the arm is. That would have taken a while to coil like that.

[practicalcat]

I might be willing to buy that Diana noticed but didn't say anything. She didn't come there to start strapping the lasso to people, and Batman yoinked it out of her hand in all of his Bat-jerk glory. Wonder Woman, Superman, and Flash have all come there to talk rather than throw their weight around. Vera talked, Naif talked. Wonder Woman might be satisfied with that. Flash is the one who says that Vera can't lie while touching the lasso, not her -- Wonder Woman's completely silent after that exchange.

[icon_uk]

Just as weird that it didn't, since it works through clothes and armour, you'd have thought a limb, even a cybernetic one, would work just as well as a conduit for the "truth power".

It does strike me a little as what I believe it termed "handing the hero the idiot ball" to make the new opponent look badass.

[espanolbot]

The thing with Vera is that it's not entirely shown just what parts of her are totally mechanical and which parts are totally organic. Her arms are textured like they're a mixture of both, but they're almost entirely artificial, while her eyes and legs look totally organic for the most part, but they're seemingly fake too.

It might be possible at this point that if the "has to touch flesh" idea is true, it might have to be tied around Vera's face or something.

[q99]

I'd suspect her torso, legs, head, eyes, etc. would work because there's some of her in it, but the arms are 100% artificial.

Like you say, it's not immediately obvious where the line between her parts and flesh are, so it's understandable someone unfamiliar with that detail wouldn't know.

Which may be why Batman suggests drugs and such even after the lasso-ing, until Naif steps up.

[icon_uk]

It might be possible at this point that if the "has to touch flesh" idea is true

Her lasso has never had to touch flesh to work, otherwise people in full body costumes or armour would be immune to it, and they're not.

[bradygirl_12]

That is one bad-ass-looking Superman in the first panel! :)

[gerardotejada]

The Lasso needs to be "around" you, It doesnt matter if It touch your skin or not.

[bruinsfan]

Yeah, in this instance it may have been an analog to wrapping the lasso around a cane someone is holding and expecting it to compel them.